Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Mock Pigeons
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the beefsteak into pieces as large as your hand.
Stuff the beefsteak pieces and skewer or tie them up.
Fry slices of salt pork in a pan.
In the fat from the pork, brown the stuffed beefsteak pieces.
Remove the beefsteak pieces from the pan.
Make a gravy from the remaining fat.
Cover the beefsteak pieces with the gravy and stew until tender, about three hours.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
-
Beef + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
You might also like
Roast Beef211 recipes
Beef Loaf175 recipes
Pork Cake107 recipes
Corned Beef87 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.